busyAnyway, this week I found myself down at the E 6th track for a tempo based workout. I was scheduled for a 9 mile run with 4 miles at half marathon pace. Perfect! I wanted to shoot for 7:30 pace to keep it to a pace that wouldn't kill my legs but tough enough to push a bit. See below and I'd say I succeeded! Good to see the pacemaker is still in shape;-)
| 800m | 3:45 | 7:30min/mile |
| 800m | 3:42 | 7:24min/mile |
| 800m | 3:45 | 7:30min/mile |
| 800m | 3:45 | 7:30min/mile |
| 400m | 1:50 | 7:20min/mile |
| 400m | 1:48 | 7:12min/mile |
| 400m | 1:47 | 7:08min/mile |
| 200m | :53 | 7:07min/mile |
| 200m | :47 | 6:19min/mile |
The last 400 and 200s were spent running through horizontal wind blown rain. That's an experience to say the least or as Coach Sponge says, a "sprinkle." It was fun but by the last 200m my feet felt like huge concrete blocks with the water. White t-shirts would not be a good idea for a workout like this:) I never went anywhere near my maximum effort for this workout which is extremely encouraging. I'm thinking the next time to try closer to 7:15 pace and see how that feels. 
And in this week's "I never win anything" column, I actually did win something besides a running lottery! A couple weeks ago my work was holding a raffle for Red Sox/Yankees tickets on July 6. Since it was the holiday weekend, the tickets needed to be used by someone and why not:) So, as we were having a get together to celebrate the office move in a couple weeks, a name was pulled out of a hat and what do you know? It was me! What an experience and even though the Red Sox lost (sorry, NY. You will never get my support for your sports teams!), I had a great time. I forgot to mention this came after a 15.5 mile run that day. Whew.I also found out yet another reason why to be weary about bridges. I was driving back from NJ and using a GPS device. I had thought it was smart and having us go around traffic. However, I'm not sure how going over the Verazzano and getting home via Brooklyn is fast:-p I got a good kick out of it and hey I got to drive part of the NYC Marathon course. Damn, that bridge is steep!! I also saw the waterfalls by the Brooklyn Bridge.
And in this week's odd occurrence in NYC: I went to dinner with a couple of friends at a local diner. After finishing (which included finding a bug in my salad! yuck!), 3 women in mini skirts were walking around handing out free cocktails. I have no idea. I'm just saying...
Coming up tomorrow? 17 miles on the agenda ending at Grimaldis in Brooklyn. Mmmm....
91 days to go. Who's counting?
